Nothing to Lose

67

Reacher and Vaughan walked back to the diner, where Reacher ate for the first time since the burger he had scored in the Fort Shaw mess the night before. He topped up his caffeine level with four mugs of coffee and when he had finished he said, “We need to go see those MPs. Now you’ve established contact we might get away with a face-to-face meeting.”

Vaughan said, “We’re going to drive through Despair again?”

Reacher shook his head. “Let’s take your truck and go cross-country.”

They peeled the paper barcodes off the new glass and Vaughan fetched paper towels and Windex from her kitchen and they wiped the wax and the handprints off the screen. Then they set off, early in the afternoon. Vaughan took the wheel. They drove five miles west on Hope’s road and risked another nine on Despair’s. The air was clear and the mountains were visible ahead, first invitingly close and then impossibly distant. Three miles before Despair’s first vacant lot they slowed and bumped down off the road, onto the scrub, and started a long loop to the north. They kept the town on their left, on a three-mile radius. It was just a blur in the distance. Not possible to tell if it was guarded by mobs or sentries, or abandoned altogether.

It was slow going across the open land. Undergrowth scraped along the underside and low bushes slapped at their flanks. The ladder and the wrecking bar in the load bed bounced and rattled. The flashlight rolled from side to side. Occasionally they found dry washes and followed them through looping meanders at a higher speed. Then it was back to picking their way around table rocks bigger than the Chevy itself and keeping the sun centered on the top rail of the windshield. Four times they drove into natural corrals and had to back up and start over. After an hour the town fell away behind them and the plant showed up ahead on the left. The wall glowed white in the sun. The parking lot looked empty. No cars. There was no smoke rising from the plant. No sparks, no noise. No activity at all.

Reacher said, “What day is it?”

Vaughan said, “It’s a regular workday.”

“Not a holiday?”

“No.”

“So where is everybody?”

They steered left and narrowed the gap between themselves and the plant. The Chevy was raising a healthy dust plume in the air behind it. It would be visible to a casual observer. But there were no casual observers. They slowed and stopped two miles out and waited. Five minutes. Ten. Then fifteen. No circulating Tahoes came around.

Vaughan asked, “What exactly is on your mind?”

“I like to be able to explain things to myself,” Reacher said.

“What can’t you explain?”

“The way they were so desperate to keep people out. The way they shut down the secret compound for the day just because I was barging around within half a mile of it. The way they found Ramirez’s body and dealt with it so fast and efficiently. It was no surprise to them. It’s like they set themselves up to be constantly vigilant for intruders. To expect them, even. And they worked out procedures in advance for dealing with them. And everyone in town is involved. The first day I showed up, even the waitress in the restaurant knew exactly what to do. Why would they go to those lengths?”

“They’re playing ball with the Pentagon. Keeping private things private.”

“Maybe. But I’m not sure. Certainly the Pentagon wouldn’t ask for that. Despair is already in the middle of nowhere and the plant is three miles out of town and the bad stuff happens in a walled-off compound inside it. That’s good enough for the Pentagon. They wouldn’t ask local people to go to bat for them. Because they trust walls and distance and geography, not people.”

“Maybe Thurman asked the people himself.”

“I’m sure he did. I’m certain of it. But why? On behalf of the Pentagon, or for some other reason of his own?”

“Like what?”

“Only one logical possibility. Actually, an illogical possibility. Or a logical impossibility. One word from the MPs and we’ll know. If they talk to us at all.”

“What word?”

“Either yes or no.”

There were four guys in the guard shack, which seemed to be their usual daytime deployment. Overkill, in Reacher’s opinion, which meant the post was most likely commanded by a lieutenant, not a sergeant. A sergeant would have had two in the shack and the other two either resting up with the others or out on mobile patrol in a Humvee, depending on the perceived threat assessment. But officers had to sign off on fuel requisitions, which would nix the mobile Humvee, and officers didn’t like men sitting around with nothing to do, which is why the shack was overcrowded. But Reacher didn’t expect the grunts to be unhappy about it. Or about anything. They had been in Iraq, and now they weren’t. The only question in his mind was whether their officer had been in Iraq with them. If he had, he might be reasonable. If he hadn’t, he might be a royal pain in the ass.

Vaughan drove past the base and U-turned and came back and parked facing the right way, tight on the shoulder, close to but not blocking the gate. Like she would outside a fire station. Respectful. Unwilling to put a foot wrong in the dance that had to be coming.

Two guys came out of the guard shack immediately. They were the same two Reacher had seen before. Morgan, the bespectacled specialist with the squint lines, and his partner, the silent private first class. Reacher kept his hands clearly visible and slid out of the truck. Vaughan did the same thing on her side. She introduced herself by name, and as an officer with the Hope PD. Morgan saluted her, in a way Reacher knew meant the MPs had run her plate the first time around, despite his best efforts, and that they had found out what her husband had been, and what he was now.

Which will help,he thought.

Then Morgan turned and looked straight at him.

“Sir?” he said.

“I was an MP myself,” Reacher said. “I did your lieutenant’s job about a million years ago.”

“Sir, which unit?”

“The 110th.”

“Rock Creek, Virginia,” Morgan said. A statement, not a question.

Reacher said, “I went there a couple of times, to get my ass kicked. The rest of the time, I was on the road.”

“On the road where?”

“Everywhere you’ve ever been, and about a hundred other places.”

“Sir, that’s interesting, but I’m going to have to ask you to move your vehicle.”

“At ease, Corporal. We’ll move it as soon as we’ve talked to your lieutenant.”

“On what subject, sir?”

“That’s between him and us,” Reacher said.

“Sir, I can’t justify disturbing him on that basis.”

“Move along, soldier. I’ve read the manual, too. Let’s skip a few pages, to where you’ve already determined that this is important.”

“Is this about the missing Marine private?”

“Much more interesting.”

“Sir, it would help me to have fuller particulars.”

“It would help you to have a million dollars and a date with Miss America, too. But what are the chances, soldier?”

Five minutes later Reacher and Vaughan were inside the wire, inside one of the six green metal buildings, face-to-face across a desk with a one-striper called Connor. He was a small lean man. He was maybe twenty-six years old. He had been to Iraq. That was for sure. His BDUs were beat up and sandblasted and his cheekbones were burned shiny. He looked competent, and probably was. He was still alive, and he wasn’t in disgrace. In fact he was probably headed for a captain’s rank, pending paperwork. Medals too, maybe. He asked, “Is this an official visit from the Hope PD?”

Vaughan said, “Yes.”

“You’re both members of the department?”

Vaughan said, “Mr. Reacher is a civilian adviser.”

“So how can I help?”

Reacher said, “Long story short, we know about the DU salvage at Thurman’s plant.”

Connor said, “That bothers me a little.”

Reacher said, “It bothers us a little, too. Homeland Security rules require us to maintain a register of chemically sensitive sites within twenty miles.” He said it as if it was true, which it might have been. Anything was possible, with Homeland Security. “We should have been told.”

“You’re more than twenty miles from the plant.”

“Twenty exactly to downtown,” Reacher said. “Only fifteen to the town limit.”

“It’s classified,” Connor said. “You can’t put it in a register.”

Reacher nodded. “We understand that. But we should have been made aware of it, privately.”

“Sounds like you are aware of it.”

“But now we want to verify some details. Once bitten, twice shy.”

“Then you need to speak to the Department of Defense.”

“Better if we don’t. They’ll wonder how we got wind of it. Your guys talking will be their first guess.”

“My guys don’t talk.”

“I believe you. But do you want to take a chance on the Pentagon believing you?”

Connor said, “What details?”

“We think we’re entitled to know when and how the scrap DU gets transported out, and what route is used.”

“Worried about it rolling down First Street?”

“You bet.”

“Well, it doesn’t.”

“It all goes west?”

Connor said, “It goes nowhere.”

Vaughan said, “What do you mean?”

“You guys aren’t the only ones with your panties in a wad. Colorado’s pretty uptight. They want to close the Interstate and use an armed convoy. Which they can’t contemplate on a regular basis. Once every five years is what they’re thinking.”

“How long ago did the first convoy leave?”

“It didn’t. The first convoy will happen about two years from now.”

Reacher said, “So right now they’re stockpiling the stuff at the plant?”

Connor nodded. “The steel moves out, the DU stays.”

“How much have they got there?”

“As of right now, maybe twenty tons.”

“Have you seen it?”

Connor shook his head. “Thurman reports monthly by mail.”

“You like that?”

“What’s not to like?”

“The guy is sitting on a mountain of dangerous stuff.”

“And? What could he possibly do with it?”